


Palmacosta

by kalypsobean



Category: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Genre: Multi, Multiple Personalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 11:48:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3766999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marta loves Emil. Emil loves Marta. Emil is Ratatosk. Ratatosk loves Marta.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Palmacosta

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



I.

With her spinner folded on her wrist, Marta sneaks into her father's office. The Vanguard demand his attention and there is nobody left but her; she's his daughter, and nobody doubts her if she misses a meeting, even such an important one as this. She's heard enough, though.

Ratatosk's core glows faintly, with a red light that reflects from her skin as she takes the core from its box. In her hands, it is warm; she can feel the life inside it, almost as if it were an egg like any lain by an animal. It makes her feel safe, somehow; the doubts she had are gone, and the tremors have stopped, the nausea faded. Now that she has the core, all she has to do is get out before someone notices it's gone, and be on her way.

The shadows form beside her, twisting and turning until Tenebrae appears.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" he says. Marta ignores him; they're still not out of the city, and she's the one leaving her family behind - not just her father, but her friends, misguided though they are.

Then she hears voices; she doesn't need to be told to run.

 

II.

"Ratatosk! Ratatosk, help me!" she screams, though she can barely hear herself over the flames, the sound of metal on stone, the cries from the people and the Vanguard soldiers and the water. She doesn't expect him to hear her, or anyone, really; she's desperate, her legs are tired from running on the pavers and the core is too precious to risk it by fighting. Tenebrae had fended off one group already; he hasn't caught up, it's a dead end, there's nothing to do but press her back to the wall and defend the core, hold it close.

Then he comes. He beats down the soldiers and looks at her, silently, before walking away. It doesn't matter anymore that she's fighting for two; the sky itself is red, like the glow from the core, and her hands are empty. 

 

Tenebrae finds her when dawn comes, the sky still red and the last of the flames dying now that nothing remains to feed them. 

"Get up, Marta," he says, sniffing at her face, with his head held high. "Did you forget we have work to do?"

"But it's gone."

"It isn't."

Her head feels warm, like the core. She feels safe.

 

III.

She sees him again six months later; she barely recognises him in those childish clothes as he stands, cowering away from a bear. Somehow, he looks smaller, turned in on himself He raises his sword, but too late, and he falls to the ground. Even after he rises, and takes point, he doesn't resemble the man who saved her as much as he does a scared young boy.

But she knows it's him; she feels safer, and stronger for it, though it's hard to explain exactly how. Tenebrae takes to him, too, or at least doesn't try to turn her away from pursuing him.

 

When the truth comes to light, she wonders how she didn't see it. The rage, the red glow, the strength; that she even found him, and that he trusted her enough to leave everything he knew to go with her. It seems natural, in retrospect, that a divine hand moved him into her path, that it was meant to be.

So of course, she loves him more. He was made for her; they have to save the world. She's living in her very own fairy tale.

Then, in the end, it all goes wrong.

 

IV.

He tried to be everything she wanted; she knows this now. When she found him, he did not remember her, for the memories were buried so far within, as he lay at rest, waiting. He tried, though; despite being shy, he stood up for her, he fought for her. He helped her feed their monsters and find the cores. 

But he couldn't be hers, that way.

"Remember when..." she starts, but stops. How it works now, she doesn't know; she didn't even know he survived until she saw him on the street.

"Remember what?" he says.

"It's nothing," she says. He didn't remember everything at the time, not always; he scared her sometimes too. There's no point bringing it up for that to happen again.

"Not if it means something to you," he says. He leans in, tucks her fringe back under the flower and over her ear.

"I came back for you," he says, quietly. 

She wants to ask who he is now; she has so many questions, but instead they walk along the dock. There's a faint howl in the distance, at which he stops and looks out to sea. "He's still here, somehow," he says.

 

She smiles.

 

V.

She can't imagine what it's like, to be awake but trapped, watching through someone else's eyes. That's what he says it's like, when it's both of them in there. Ratatosk has to watch over the world, and he already has an avatar; sometimes she wakes up to see Emil pacing, some creature or another at the window, and he looks at her with red eyes. Tenebrae's the only one who talks to her as well.

Things seemed simpler, back then, despite the looming prospect of destruction.

"I wouldn't mind, you know," Emil says, one night when they're winding down, her head on his shoulder as they sit on their sofa. Emil was reading, and she was happy just to be with him, not alone.

"What?" she says, although she already knows.

"If you... with him," he says. He's still awkward around her, which makes easy to steer him, if she wants, but not now. "You looked after him, helped him. He knows you well. He loves you, I think. I think I feel that."

"But I love you," she says, and he takes her shoulders, lifts her away so he can look in her eyes, and she can see his.

"You love him too. And me. We were the same, once, I guess. Maybe still are. I'm not sure. But when he's here, I'm here too, just, you know, it's him."

She thinks back to that other Emil, the one who was strong, who pushed her away, and yet would always unleash Sword Rain if a monster got too close to her, the one who saved her. 

"It wouldn't be the same," she says. At the same time, she wonders, maybe, if Ratatosk hadn't slipped out, once or twice already, if there hadn't been some in between time when Emil kissed her goodnight and wasn't quite himself, and woke up in the back of his own mind, pushed down to make room. "It's so confusing."

"Tenebrae would have something to say about that," Emil says. "But he's in me, all the time. I feel him, even when he's not talking to me, or through me." 

It really wouldn't be that much different, is what he's trying to say, and yet, it would be, for her. Emil's gentle with her, does what he's told. He loves her enough to let her lead, and she loves him enough to pull him in her wake. 

But Ratatosk was never like that, when he was Emil.

A thought occurred to her, of Emil holding her down, of looking up into red eyes and knowing she had the sole attention of a spirit. It made her dizzy. Emil smiled, though it didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Just try it, and see," he says.

"You'll be there, too, though?" she says. It felt very important, that; he balanced her, and they'd been through so much. If it would break his heart, it would hurt her too, a physical ache and a barrier between them that might never be torn back down. "I don't want to lose you to him." She doesn't want to be alone with him, doesn't want to be without Emil. Doesn't want him to not come back.

"I think so." She wants to yell at him, get him to be certain about this, but he's withdrawing, fading back into that way he gets where he won't talk unless she asks him a direct question, doesn't move unless she makes him. 

"Okay," she says, and Emil looks up at her, his eyes shining. She can't tell if he's happy or sad.

"Okay," he says, his voice high, shaky. Sad, then; there's not much she can do about it, though, because his posture changes, his eyes take on a hard glare, and Tenebrae appears from nowhere, as he always does.

"We'll come back," Ratatosk says, and they walk away, leaving her to find something to busy herself with as she tries to work out, exactly, what she's gotten herself into now.


End file.
